Progressive Wednesday

Plants are our friends.

August 11th, 2007 by Matt

It’s this kind of information that makes me glad I woke up in the morning, poured myself a cup of java (heavy on the cream), plopped myself down, and scanned through the day’s news, obscure and popular alike. Check it out:

The leaves of Aspilia africana, a plant used in African traditional medicine, can stop bleeding, block infection and speed wound healing, a new study from Nigeria confirms.

The leaves and flowers of A. Africana, a bristle-covered herb known as the “hemorrhage plant,” have been used to stanch bleeding, remove foreign bodies from the eyes, treat scorpion stings, and for several other purposes across the African continent.

I’m comforted, quite often, by science (you know, when people aren’t cloning goats, building a better thermonuclear bomb, or using their massive minds to concoct a tastier McBurger). The aforementioned information made my morning, quite frankly, and made me realize, yet again, how central to our lives the rest of the ecosystem is. We’re all part of one larger organism, and we’ve been given–by chance or by Divinity, depending on our beliefs–tools and cures, techniques and creations that we’ve barely tapped.

All this is to say, there’s more hope out there than the mainstream media will let us see with ease, and there’s more hope. And hope, my friends, might be the most progressive of emotions. Let’s not forget that, and let’s not lose it, despite the desires of the powerful few.

So let’s raise our collective mugs to Aspilia africana and to the scientists bringing it to the masses.